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Humans subtly synchronize body movement during face-to-face conversation. In this context, bodily synchrony has been linked to affiliation and social bonding, task success and comprehension, and potential conflict. Almost all studies of conversational synchrony involve dyads, and relatively less is known about the structure of synchrony in groups larger than two. We conducted an optic flow analysis of body movement in triads engaged in face-to-face conversation, and explored a common measure of synchrony: time-aligned bodily covariation. We correlated this measure of synchrony with a diverse set of covariates related to the outcome of interactions. Triads showed higher maximum cross-correlation relative to a surrogate baseline, and 'meta-synchrony', in that composite dyads in a triad tended to show correlated structure. A windowed analysis also revealed that synchrony varies widely across an interaction. As in prior studies, average synchrony was low but statistically reliable in just a few minutes of interaction. In an exploratory analysis, we investigated the potential function of body synchrony by predicting it from various covariates, such as linguistic style matching, liking, laughter and cooperative play in a behavioural economic game. Exploratory results do not reveal a clear function for synchrony, though colaughter within triads was associated with greater body synchrony, and is consistent with an earlier analysis showing a positive connection between colaughter and cooperation. We end by discussing the importance of expanding and codifying analyses of synchrony and assessing its function.

Recent research has shown that action knowledgeinfluences categorical decisions (Borghi, Flumini, Natraj &Wheaton, 2012; Chao & Martin, 2000; Iachini, Borghi &Senese, 2008; Kalénine, Shapiro, Flumini, Borghi &Buxbaum, 2013). Shipp, Vallée-Tourangeau, and Anthony,(2014) showed that action influences categorisation in aforced-choice triad task when combined with taxonomicinformation and presented within a functional context. Thepresent experiment examined whether participants wouldbe more likely to match items in a triad task based onshared actions following priming with the functionalactions of the objects. Participants engaged in the triad taskused in Shipp et al. after a priming phase where they eitherinteracted with a series of objects for their functionalcapacity (Action Priming), grouped them into categories(Taxonomic Priming) or moved them from one table toanother (Movement Priming). Items within the triads werepresented as an image either on a white background(context-lean condition) or as a functional scene with theobject being used by an agent (context-rich condition).Consistent with Shipp et al. the results showed that actionwas primarily used to base choices on the triad task whenthe action choice also shared a taxonomic relation, and waspresented in context. Additionally, participants were morelikely to select the action related item when they had beenprimed with the functional action of the objects. The resultsare discussed in terms of the transfer effect from the objectinteraction task that facilitates how the objects aresimulated (Barsalou, 1999, 2003; Yeh & Barsalou, 2006).

The forced-choice triad task has become increasinglypopular in use over recent years. While it is seen as beinga categorisation task (Lin & Murphy, 2001) variation intask instructions often leads to different results. Shipp,Vallée-Tourangeau, and Anthony (2014) used the triadtask to show that when participants are asked to choosean option that ‘goes best with the target’, they are morelikely to select the choice that shares an action relationwhen it also shares taxonomic information. Howeverusing the instruction to select the item that “goes best” isvague and might encourage a strategy other than acategorical decision. The present experiment used thesame triads as in Shipp et al. to test whether participantswould match items based on shared actions or sharedtaxonomic relations when given specific categorisationinstructions. The task instructions were manipulated sothat participants either selected the item that “goes best”,“goes best to form a category” or is “most similar” to thetarget. The results found instances where the instructionsof “goes best to form a category” led to a higherprobability that participants would select the actionchoices over the instructions of “goes best”. Howeverwhen participants were encouraged to use similarityoverall action choices were lower. Therefore the triadtask does encourage a natural categorisation strategy anddifferences in task instructions across research are aresult of the stimuli used.

Homans' insights that interaction and sentiment are in a feedback loop that includes clique formation, social ranking and leadership are formalized and derived from a set of limited assumptions and propositions. Freeman's model of groups is used to detect pure informal groups, those that are not consequential upon anything else than sheer hanging around. It produces a system of cliques and rankings based purely on the rates of transitive triads that may include a third who is only weakly connected to the other two. Two assumptions about motivation in networks – the need for safety and efficacy are then combined with Gould's modeling of asymmetric relations in which members are valued for either intrinsic or extrinsic merits. The ratings tend to cascade according to the "Matthew Effect." Finally, people like to choose others who are more attractive than they are, subject to the condition that too much unrequited love is painful. Gould's Formalization of these ideas for the case of small groups produces, among other results, the consequence that those who are chosen more often than others also tend to direct interaction more towards others with lesser rank, a non-intuitive result observed by Homans, but explained by him in substantive rather than formal terms. The logic of rank further dictates that groups become segmented by structural equivalence. Other results are also summarized.